Trump special counsel ‘wrapping up’ mishandling of classified documents investigation: report
Special counsel Jack Smith is nearing the end of his criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Smith is “wrapping up” the probe and has “all but finished” collecting evidence and testimony related to boxes of classified material found by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence last August.
Prosecutors on Smith’s team reportedly have interviewed virtually every employee at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate – in some cases, multiple times – in an effort to determine whether Trump had criminal intentions behind his failure to turn over sensitive documents from his time in the White House to the National Archives and Records Administration.
Through a flurry of grand jury interviews in recent weeks, the Journal reports, Smith’s investigators have also sought to “tie up loose ends” and determine the potential claims Trump’s lawyers might raise in the event charges are brought.
The report added that some of Trump’s closest associates are “bracing for his indictment” and foresee the 2024 presidential candidate being able to fundraise off new charges, similar to what happened after the 76-year-old was indicted by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg earlier this year.
Minutes after the Wall Street Journal report was published, the Trump campaign fired off an email soliciting donations and blasting Smith as “treasonous.”
“A poll just came out where I am way up on Biden in the General Election. What that means is that the Radical Left Democrats will step up their Fake Investigations on me because they now see they can’t win at the Ballot Box. Trump-hating Special Prosecutor Jack Smith will be working overtime on this treasonous quest,” reads the email signed by Trump.
Smith’s team has reportedly obtained evidence that appears to show that the former president held on to classified documents after being asked to return them.
Last week, the National Archives reportedly confirmed that it would give Smith’s team access to communications between Trump – while he was still in office – and some of his advisers about declassifying documents, which could be used by prosecutors to undermine Trump’s claims that he can verbally declassify material.
Smith, a veteran Justice Department prosecutor with experience handling war crimes cases at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland last November to handle investigations into Trump related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot as well as the Mar-a-Lago classified records scandal.
A separate special counsel – Robert Hur – was appointed by Garland last year to handle the government’s classified records investigation into President Joe Biden.
It is unclear how far along Hur’s probe is.
Biden’s personal attorneys said they first discovered classified material in early November 2022 at Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington, DC.
In the following weeks, Biden’s lawyers found more classified documents at his Wilmington, Del., home, and the DOJ discovered more when it conducted its own search.
